—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—
Despite the massive outcry from constituents that demanded their elected officials vote against yesterday’s $700B Wall Street bailout, observers and some marching-in-lockstep lawmakers are saying, to quote Billy Crystal’s character from The Princess Bride, “Miracle Max,” the bill is only “mostly dead.” In other words, there may still be a way for Congress to circumvent the wishes of the American People and pass a bill that gives Wall Street liars and gamblers a “do-over,” paying for their gambling bill and making them whole.
If only I would have had access to that kind of bailout the last time I went to Vegas.
Washington, DC needs to hear this: The American People don’t want to send the message that it’s OK to bail out thieves and gamblers.
Sure, there will be hardship. That’s a consequence of cutting corners and looking to “get something for nothing.” What many on Wall Street are seeking to avoid is not only the harsh reality of paying the bill on a bad investment, but also jail time. And there WILL be jail time. The hardship must come, if we truly want to cleanse our economy of this problem. What those responsible for the fiasco caused by OTC derivatives and toxic debt repackaging really fear is the outrage the hardship will create. Outrage that will inspire investigations, trials and prison time.
It will be tough, but it’s necessary.
Posted in
Economy Tags:
Bailout,
Depression,
Economy,
Recession
—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—
As we wait for the markets to open (in about 40 minutes from this writing), many readers of WCN are asking “what will happen if the economy ‘melts down?’”
That’s a good question. The answer to which brought a chilling silence to the assembled Congressional leaders when Bernanke and Paulson briefed them several days ago, pleading for the adoption of the $700B bailout plan.
In short, the result could very well be the end of the United States of America as a viable economic entity. To be blunt and even shorter: Chaos.
The United States is an economic system that depends on a lot of moving parts working together in complicated subsystems. Money must flow, in the form of credit, trucks must roll, supplying a long supply line of commerce that stretches from the manufacturer of millions of products all the way to the checkout stand, and people must go to work so they can earn paychecks that go into bank accounts so all of this can be paid for.
If there’s no money to buy loads of plastic, made-in-China stuff at Wal-Mart, there are no jobs for the Wal-Mart checkers, with no money going into THEIR checking accounts, etc. If money can’t flow to pay for fuel, big trucks pulling semi-trailers can roll into your local Safeway to deliver the food that you use YOUR bank credits to buy and take home. Without those trucks rolling, there’s nothing on the shelves of that Safeway.
Chaos.
If you were watching CNN or Fox News over the weekend, you may be wondering why all of these professional, usually cool-under-fire politicians were on camera clearly shaken, unsure and in my estimation, on a couple of occasions, almost ready to cry. They were staring into the abyss, know that even if they passed a bailout package, there was no guarantee that it would save them from the plunge along with the rest of us.
And it was interesting seeing them so shaken. It is absolutely critical that you realize these people who pretend to serve us in Washington, DC have created a system that almost totally insulates them from the challenges we “unwashed masses” face in our lives. From health care to a retirement system that is completely detached from our Social Security system. Their system is well-funded and not, as ours is, bankrupt. To see these people, who by the way created this crisis, sweating it along with the rest of this, is interesting.
—Update—
Here we go…Down +100 9:34am…
Down 300+ 10:45am…
Posted in
Economy,
Politics Tags:
Bailout Plan,
Congress,
Depression,
Economy,
Recession
—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—
Three important posts from the Northeast Intelligence Network
Our current economic crisis: Could part be a terror attack on U.S. financials?
Analyzing patterns and pre-attack indicators
More in financial terrorism possibilities
Though other indications have come our way, these three posts from NIN are very clear, concise and paint the most complete picture of any website available.
Information has come to WCN from the most reliable sources that U.S. officials are taking very seriously the possibility of “severe disruptions” in the next two weeks, centered on October 7. It’s also very interesting and troubling that the “web bot project” from this group is suggesting that their predictive linguistic data gathering is suggesting a potentially massive and important event near that same date.
This is a time when our economy is at its most vulnerable. I believe this is all very real.
Be safe and be prepared.
This is a developing story that WCN will continue to follow.
Posted in
Economy,
Terrorism Tags:
Depression,
Economy,
Islam,
Terrorism,
War
We’re at a critical juncture in our history. The American economy has been built on credit, truly huge amounts of credit, and the problem is the American people have stopped seeing the credit they spend as wealth and real money. Las Vegas uses chips as money in casinos, not just because it’s safer or simpler, but because they know the psychology of gambling. A player will find it much easier to put a black chip at risk than a one hundred dollar bill. A blackjack table wouldn’t see nearly as much business if vacation gamblers had to open their wallets and put their hard-earned cash on the table.
Credit cards are the same thing. How often have you made purchases on your credit card (or your debit card for that matter) that you never would have forked over cash for? I’ve done it, and in my advancing years I’ve become pretty conservative. The cliche that we’ve been using our homes as ATMs for the past several years is perfectly accurate. We’ve been spending money we didn’t have, profits we hadn’t realized that banks, mortgage brokers and other financial services entities called “equity.” We’re waking up with a huge financial hangover after many years of binge spending.
Congress is debating how to solve the problem. In truth, they’re debating how best to spin a “solution” to the American people that will make them look clean and faultless in the situation. It’s all politics. What our “leaders” do on Capitol Hill doesn’t, in the long run, mean anything. The problem is well beyond anything they can do to solve it. The vast majority of them don’t even understand it. The only important person inside the Beltway that I can confidently say understands what’s going on is Ron Paul, but he’s been so marginalized by the media, he’s out of sight. That’s a shame of historical enormity, because Dr. Paul gets it. The American people will never realize what our two parties have cost us by spinning Ron Paul into the media wilderness, and I feel sad about that.
There is no solution that Congress and the great mass of Americans will accept, because a true, cleansing solution will be economically painful and will mean a dramatic reduction in our standard of living. There’s no room for that in the “American Dream.” But the American Dream is just that, a dream. It is time to wake up, because the sun is coming up and the new day is starting, even though dark clouds threaten. Many Americans will find waking so disorienting and painful, they’ll try to convince themselves they’re still asleep, and will refuse to face reality. They’ll try hard to maintain their standard of living, but it will be impossible. Faced with an angry populace, our leaders will do whatever they can to keep this false, plastic dream alive. They’ve actually gotten quite good at this over the past couple decades, but they’re having to get more and more dramatic in their “solutions.” It’s getting out of hand, and will escape their control very soon.
At that time, I fear our Government’s only option will be military action to distract the American people from the truth of our economic situation. American forces exchanged fire with Pakistani troops today, and that’s a problem, because they’re supposedly our allies. They’re also a nuclear power. I think what’s happening, is that the Bush administration is pushing really, really hard for some resolution to the bin Laden situation, and telling Pakistan that it’s time to give him up. They don’t want to do that, but George Bush doesn’t want to leave office with bin Laden still free. He wants the image of the man who masterminded 9/11 paraded through the streets of New York in chains to be his lasting legacy. Maybe then, he must figure, will people forget about all the failed policies, corruption and incompetence that marked his administration. But, the Pakistanis won’t go down so easy, especially possessing nukes. It could get very, very ugly, very, very quickly.
Posted in
Economy,
War Tags:
Bailout,
Depression,
Economy,
War
A fascinating interview online with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is online at NPR.org. Listening to it on All Things Considered this morning, I was again amazed at the Amero-centric worldview we have in the U.S. Steve Inskeep did a wonderful job verbally combating Ahmadinejad, who according to Inskeep, never stopped smiling, but I have to admit, I agree with Ahmadinejad when he asks “Why do you assume that your system is better than everybody else’s?”
I would love to simply call the Iranian President a modern-day Hitler, but can’t. He’s no dummy. He’s very intelligent, and despite staying calm as Inskeep called him to task about everything from his alleged desire to “wipe Israel off the map” to, if I heard correctly, charges he was one of the students who took American hostages in the 70s. He responded to it all calmly and intelligently.
But what made the biggest impression on my was his question to Inskeep, when asked about the Iranian system’s freedom of expression and freedom to run for office even if you don’t agree with the Mullahs. Ahmadinejad responded “I ask you, can anyone in fact become a president without the support of either of the two parties here in the United States?”
Oooh. Good point.
I don’t know, ask Ron Paul.
Don’t you just hate it when they do that? You’re in the middle of a perfectly good finger-pointing attack and the guy turns it around by holding up a mirror?
I only hope when Inskeep saw his reflection he was wearing a nicer jacket than the Iranian President was.
Posted in
Politics,
War Tags:
Ahmadinejad,
Iran,
NPR,
Steve Inskeep
Was the 20th Century. Americans wanted to keep the rally alive and make the 21st Century American as well. The “financial tsunami” currently washing over our economy suggests this century won’t belong to us. But who will dominate?
Many believe China. Others say Brazil. Russia, of course, has their own ideas about who should dominate. It’s a tough call. With the blank check bailout Congress is currently debating (and will eventually, whether they want to or not, will pass) a plan that effectively converts us from a Capitalist country to a Communist one. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s essentially true. We are setting up a system in which the government owns and lends. By buying up billions in mortgages, the U.S. Government is converting millions of American homes into public housing.
That’s not the government’s job. But in bailing out Wall Street and buying bad investments from the fools who made them, the government is taking ownership of things it has no business owning. It’s the kind of huge government expansion the founders cautioned against.
Posted in
Economy Tags:
Bailout,
Depression,
Economy,
Recession
Apparently, the Chinese curse worked. We are living in “interesting times.”
Congress is currently putting together a play that will, depending on whose view you take, save the economy of the U.S. (and so the world) from certain destruction, or simply create a financial autocrat in Henry Paulson. The latter view is particularly troubling, since the same Henry Paulson is the bureaucrat under whose leadership as Treasury Secretary we arrived in this mess. He is the former head of Goldman Sachs, raising serious concerns about how appropriately he’ll treat his former employer through this mess (the phrase “sweetheart deal” is being mentioned), but more importantly, many are sure the guy whose incompetence helped get us in this mess is exactly the wrong guy to help steer us out of it.
I can’t disagree with this sentiment.
The amazing thing about all of this, is that despite government’s inability to manage important systems, like Medicare and Social Security, the American people are willing to write the biggest blank check in the history of civilization to fix everything. It simply won’t work, and represents nothing more than a bigger band-aid slapped over the collection of previous band-aids. It’s folly, and meant, in the humble opinion of your editor, to give the people who created this mess a little more time to check and adjust their golden parachutes and jump out of the burning, disintegrating airplane before it crashes.
As I write this at 5:39am on Monday, Gold is again jumping in price. One of the most disturbing sights on Thursday and Friday of last week was the strong rise in the price of the metal, even though the stock seemed to be charging back. While satisfying, since I believe that gold is the only safe harbor for saving wealth, it still made me uncomfortable to see the numbers march hand in hand with the Dow. It’s not supposed to work that way
Also disturbing is how many people don’t have a clue about what’s going on. They blindly waddle into Best Buy to buy plasma televisions and fill restaurants. They just don’t believe anything bad can happen. They are wrong. A bad thing happened over the weekend. Our economy turned down a dark, dark road bereft of road signs, or I fear, much pavement.
Protect yourself, your family and your assets. I urge you to read, at the very least, Financial Armageddon (both the book and the website), Urban Survival, JSMineset and DailyReckoning.
Posted in
Economy Tags:
Depression,
Economy,
Financial Armageddon,
Government Bailout,
Recession
I am sorry to inform you that as bad as the U.S. national debt was as last Friday dawned, it is twice as bad now. The United States Government on Friday (after the markets closed) seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, effectively writing a blank check for the mismanagement and fraudulent mortgage lending they were responsible for.
Our children and grandchildren will see an economic system choked by the debt these two massive morons created. Basically, the American taxpayer has been volunteered to make good bad loans that should never have been made, and the entities that made the loans have been protected. The sad thing is, when I say “taxpayers,” I’m not just talking about Americans who filed tax returns in 2008, I’m talking about taxpayers who haven’t even been born yet. That’s how massive and far reaching this fiasco is.
On Saturday night, my wife, 6 year old son and I entertained some friends and their two boys, 6 and 9 at our house for pizza. As we listened to the boys playing with the Wii, laughing and joking as they played Star Wars: The Complete Saga, the talk turned to the economy and I said “I believe that 20 years from now, we’ll look at last night (Friday) as the day everything changed with the economy. It’ll be seen as the beginning of the end for the dollar, the U.S. economy and our current American way of life. Mark the date.”
I truly believe that.
One of the most outrageous elements of this financial debacle, is that the outgoing heads of both companies, Richard Syron, of Freddie Mac and Daniel Mudd of Fannie Mae have received millions of dollars in pay and stock options over the past few years, and have in their contracts lucrative severance packages.
Presidential candidate Democrat Barack Obama said that Congress must block these two fools from collecting millions as the American Taxpayer get stuck with the bill, and for once, I wholeheartedly agree with him. They should leave at best, tarred and feathered and at worst, should go straight to prison. Idiots, or con men, they should not profit while we the people cover the cost of the enormous failures.
Though most Americans don’t comprehend what just happened, it’s a very sad day. Nothing can stop what is about to befall our economy and way of life. Prepare yourself for a dramatic change in the way we live.
It will NOT be easy.
Posted in
Economy Tags:
Bailout,
Depression,
Economy,
Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac,
Recession